1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a steering assistance display device which displays required information to a driver when steering a vehicle.
2. Description of Related Art
When approaching a corner while driving a vehicle, the act of “predicting how far to turn the steering wheel” is generally much more difficult for a beginner than for an experienced driver. An experienced driver can understand, in an instinctive fashion, the predicted path of travel of the vehicle, from the relationship between the vehicle speed and the radius of the corner, based on his or her vision and experience, and can perform a steering operation in accordance with this instinctive understanding. On the other hand, a beginner performs a steering operation by looking at a relatively close point on the corner. Therefore, the beginner cannot “read” the end of the corner, and adjusts the steering angle while in the curve, which is liable to give rise to wobbles in the travel of the vehicle.
In order to prevent wobbling of this kind, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 5-058196 (JP 5-058196 A) discloses displaying virtual vehicle wheels to a driver by a display device, such as a head-up display (HUD), in the vicinity of the bonnet, as a parameter indicating the actual steering angle of the vehicle wheels.
However, by displaying the actual steering angle, it is only possible to provide a predicted path of travel when the vehicle is at low speeds, and it is not possible to prompt a beginner to predict the path of travel in a broad vehicle speed range, and therefore the beginner cannot be prompted to perform a suitable steering operation. In other words, with the available technology, there has been a problem in that it has been difficult to prompt such a driver to perform a suitable steering operation.